1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method and apparatus for controlling the termination of one or more processes in an information handling system in response to a shutdown command and, in particular, to a method and apparatus for controlling the termination of UNIX processes running under the control of an UNIX operating system kernel.
2. Description of the Related Art
A typical computer system, especially a server system, has a multiplicity of different processes running concurrently under the control of an operating system kernel, often a UNIX kernel. Frequently, for maintenance or other purposes, it is necessary to shut down most or all of these processes. Typically, in a UNIX system, this is done by sending each process a SIGTERM signal, followed by a SIGKILL signal if the process fails to respond to the SIGTERM signal. While this successfully terminates the processes, it does so in an unpredictable manner, since the processes being terminated must do so abruptly, potentially without executing their usual termination procedures.